The School Board - first article

You have got to wonder what is really going on at Shepard Middle School that would motivate a parent by the name of Minnie Brown to organize Concerned Black Citizens for the sole purpose of ousting the principal, herself Afro-American, for being too rough on certain black students. Juxtapose this with the pressure recently to reduce the number of suspensions meted out disproportionately to black males, the evidence that gang activity is a serious problem in this town, the backlash against Bill Cosby for strongly suggesting that blacks that want to participate fully in our society should at least conform to the language of that society if not its basic values and the pressure to meet educational standards set by the state.

The school board, the superintendent and the principals and staff have very tough jobs where they can't please everyone. The crux of the issue is where you draw the lines between education, social work, and law enforcement. Maybe you can't. At the risk of seeming much more conservative than I am, where I come down now is that the primary role of our school system is to educate those willing and able to attend. Everything else is secondary. Young people who by their presence disrupt or endanger that mission should be suspended or explelled. The "right" number of suspensions is that level that insures that the students who do desire to learn, can do that in a safe environment that supports skills development and intellectual activity. That line should also be observed by parents and even school board members.

Other people will draw that line in a different place thereby involving the school system to a greater degree in social work and law enforcement. To convince me they will have to show why the brunt of the consequences of bad behavior should be borne by the innocent, the students who want to learn. If Minnie Driver, her child, Jackie Wagstaff, and the rest of Concerned Black Citizens, don't like it they should be sentenced to watching all the reruns of the Cosby Show.